It is with great sadness that the Diocese of Leeds announces the death of Fr Joseph Falloon MSC, former Parish Priest of the Sacred Heart and St William at Uppermill. He died on 30 March 2023 at Four Ferns Nursing Home, Foxrock, near Dublin. He was ninety-four years of age.
Father Joe Falloon MSC was born in Belfast and spent his childhood on the Falls Road. He was an altar boy in the Redemptorist Clonard Monastery there. At the age of fifteen he went to the Sacred Heart Apostolic School in Cork. Two years later he entered the Novitiate of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart at Glandore, West Cork. He studied philosophy at Myross Wood, West Cork and theology at Moyne Park in County Galway. He was ordained to the Priesthood on 29 September 1953 at the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart House of Studies at Moyne Park.
Father Joe first came to England in 1970 when he was appointed to the Parish of St Joseph in Maidenhead. Following a year in Basingstoke, he was transferred to the Parish of St Alban and St Stephen, in St Albans, Hertfordshire. In 1984 he moved to Liverpool and in 1992 he went to Tamworth, in Staffordshire. It was in September 1993 that Father Joe was installed as Parish Priest of the Sacred Heart and St William at Uppermill, which was served by the MSCs from 1952 until 2012.
In April 2008 Fr Joe celebrated his 80th birthday at Uppermill and to mark the occasion the parishioners commissioned a stained-glass window to complete the triptych at the back of the church. The window depicts Our Lady of Saddleworth and is dedicated to all the MSC priests who have served in the Sacred Heart parish in Uppermill. (Our picture is courtesy of the Oldham Evening Chronicle)
Fr Joe retired to Dublin in 2009 and in later years he continued to visit Uppermill and to serve the parish during holiday times. In September 2013 a large group of parishioners travelled to Dublin to join in the celebrations for the Diamond Jubilee of his ordination.
Following his death, Fr Falloon’s body was taken from the nursing home in Foxrock to the MSC Community Chapel at Blackrock, County Dublin where Evening Prayer will be said at 6pm on the evening of Friday 31 March. The Requiem Mass takes place at 10am on Saturday 1 April in the Community Chapel at Woodview, followed by burial in the MSC section at Deans Grange Cemetery, County Dublin.
Eternal Rest Grant Unto Him, O Lord, and Let Perpetual Light Shine Upon Him.
May He Rest in Peace
Amen.
Recent Comments